Mass vaccination has resumed today after exercise being halted by government following the 964,000 doses of the vaccine, which were received through a global sharing initiative–Covax and the Indian government, got finished recently.
According to the statement released by the Ministry of Health,COVID-19 vaccination exercise resumes today Monday 28 June until Friday 2 July 2021.Groups that will be immunized are: All those who have reached 12 weeks since receiving their 1st dose of the vaccine.
Dr Alfred Driwale, the head of vaccination programme in the Ministry of Health said that 8 vaccination points have been put in each of the divisions of Kampala to avoid overcrowding asking the population to go for vaccination.
“If we don’t manage ourselves very well during the immunization period, we could create super spreader events at those vaccination sites so for that reason we are have agreed that districts have an internal mechanism to have a number of vaccination points to ensure that they are close to people,” said Driwale.
Recently Uganda received an additional 175,200 doses of the Astra Zeneca COVID-19 vaccine donated by the French government through the COVAX facility.
The first two batches, totaling 964,000 doses arrived in the country in March and are expected to expire by July 10th, 2021.
By June 13, over 800,000 people including health workers, teachers, security personnel, airport staff, the elderly and people with diabetes, hypertension and other underlying conditions had been vaccinated.
It should be noted that also the third wave infections have started hiting African countries according to World Health Organisation (WHO).
it’s said that Africa is facing a fast-surging third wave of COVID-19 pandemic, with cases spreading more rapidly and projected to soon overtake the peak of the second wave the continent witnessed at the start of 2021,” according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) regional office in Africa.
WHO said in a statement that the pandemic is re-surging in 12 African countries? Meanwhile, the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, first identified in India, has been detected in 14 African countries.
“The third wave is picking up speed, spreading faster, hitting harder. With rapidly rising case numbers and increasing reports of serious illness, the latest surge threatens to be Africa’s worst yet,” Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa said.
In Uganda, the second wave of COVID-19 has a daily average of 1,000 cases and over 65 deaths recorded in the past weeks.